


Bridged

by BekasStrife



Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2017-12-22 14:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BekasStrife/pseuds/BekasStrife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope Estheim is a Ranger who swore he would never let another someone into his head when traumatic events strip him of his mother. Noel is the sole survivor of a Kaiju attack who strives to be someone his family would be proud of. </p>
<p>[Snippets of their lives as they intertwine and then become one and the same.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Young and Naive

**Author's Note:**

> Saw Pacific Rim, loved the movie and had the insane idea of throwing my OTP into the middle of it.   
> It strays from the movie's original plot but the concepts are the same.   
> I don't own any of them, obviously.

**i.**  
The very first time Hope sees a Jaeger up close it's in Oblivion Bay, where his father had been stationed to analyse and further tinker with the battered robots, in search for any that might still have a chance at reconstruction.There was one, his father told him and pointed him towards it with a knowing smile.  
It was _massive_. It exuded power. It was _humbling_.  
As his mother squeezed his shoulder, something ignited within his chest just as the Jaeger's core stuttered and showed signs of life, of hope.  
Cheers were heard across the graveyard and he just _knew_.  
He would become a Jaeger pilot.

 **ii.**  
The very first time Noel sees a Jaeger up close, it is in the middle of the rubble of what used to be his village and towering over the still warm corpses of the people he called family.  
Located close to the sea so they could take advantage of the fish and have to hunt less, thus avoiding what they thought were the bigger threats and lessening the possibilities of losing one of their own, nothing could have prepared them for the knowledge that they were _prey_.  
Sobs shake his small frame and it is hard to see with the tears in his eyes but, as he clutches his small, torn sandal to his chest, he still manages to see the blur of a pink haired pilot emerge from the Jaeger's shoulder and tentatively smile down at him. It was small but _heartfelt_ in what he instantly recognized as empathy and he felt his little shoulders sag as relief ran through his body.  
He wasn't alone, after all. He was safe now.  
And, as he looked around one last time before being led away by the pilot - who had introduced herself as 'Lightning' and asked him if he wanted to come with her, to which he had eagerly nodded - Noel bit his quivering lip and made a silent vow to fight and make sure no-one else would lose as much as he just had.  
He would become a Jaeger pilot.

 **iii.**  
Hope was a young prodigy, people told him.  
He had barely reached his fifteenth birthday when he graduated at the top of his class at the Jaeger Academy and officially became a Ranger, a feat never accomplished before.  
The complications came after.  
Due to his mistrust of others and his introverted personality, none of the candidates recommended proved to be drift compatible with him and, without two pilots, a Jaeger wouldn't be going anywhere. It just wasn't physically possible.  
After three months of trials, Hope was getting _desperate_. Without a co-pilot, his dream would be nothing but that - a _dream_ \- and, even though he had already been offered several positions in any of the engineering teams tending to and creating other Jaeger, it just wasn't what he _wanted_ : he wanted to be _out there_ , fighting and protecting those dear to him, not sit behind a desk running calculations and creating blueprints.  
As the deadline rushed in and he still found no suitable co-pilot, Hope was about to give up when his own _mother_ walked into the Combat Room and grabbed a _Kendo_ stick, assuming a fighting stance.  
He had asked her if she was sure. Why was she doing it, in the first place. Her answer had been a sharp stab to his heart with the end of her weapon and a swing at his knees, which he stumbled away from. She was determined and wouldn't take no for an answer.  
In the end, as they huffed and puffed and faced each other after an equally matched spar, he realized: he had found his co-pilot.

 **iv.**  
Noel was too young, people told him.  
Since he had been rescued by the now Marshall Farron, since then his adoptive mother, he was insistent in his intent to join the Rangers and become a pilot. He was being forced to wait, however.  
There was a minimum age limit to be able to enter the Rangers - thirteen years old. He was barely ten and scrawny to boot.  
He often heard Aunt Serah complain behind doors that thirteen was still too young to introduce _children_ to the horrors of fighting Kaiju but Lightning always argued back that, while she agreed, it was a time of war: young or not, they could _not_ afford to turn away any help offered to them.  
Aunt Serah usually fell silent after that.  
While he waited, he would have to attend school, per Lightning's desire. He had scoffed once she had turned her back on him.  
As if algebra or History lessons would prepare him for his goal: they _hadn't_ prepared humans for the first Kaiju attack that had single-handedly destroyed three whole cities until they were able to stop it and they most certainly _wouldn't_ prepare him, years after that. Still, he did what was asked of him and he gave it his very best. It was the least he could do at the moment to honour all his mentor had done so far for him... but he wouldn't give up. This _wasn't_ giving up.  
He would become a Jaeger pilot and make Lightning and his family - all of it - proud.

 **v.**  
Sharing a neural handshake could be explained as an act of _intimacy_ : every little thing you have ever gone through is exposed to your co-pilot and in turn, the same happens to them.  
Your two minds become one. There are no secrets. Only pure and complete understanding of each other.  
To share that experience with your mother... For starters, there is not much she doesn't know about you in the first place (especially when you're young, or as young as Hope was) but there's a world of information _you_ just don't know about your parents. He had only ever known _Mom_. Then he got to know _Nora.  
_ He now knew it all: from her very first memories with the grandparents he had never got to meet to his conception - he could barely look her in the eye when they disconnected, _gods_ \- and consequent birth followed by her feelings on him becoming a pilot and her decision to join him.  
How _proud_ she was of _him_. How much she _loved him_.  
Hope had always been close to his mother: of all the people he wanted to keep close and protected, she was at the top of that list; he loved her the most.  
When Nora became his co-pilot, he had been relieved. Not only he could follow through with his career, he also had in hands the _best chance_ at keeping her _safe_ \- all he had to was what he was _best_ at: pilot and fight in a Jaeger.  
Jaeger were tough. _Sturdy_. Made to withstand and retaliate to Kaiju attacks. Place a competent duo of pilots in it and it was _invincible_.  
Was there any better place to keep her safe?

He lost his naivety when a category III Kaiju emerged in their turf.  
They had willingly lost their advantage to move a small fishing boat out of harm's way. Two save a couple lives, they allowed the Kaiju to notice them and attack first, which had been their first mistake. As they were preparing to leave, after the Command Center pronounced the threat neutralized and kaiju blue covered their surroundings as far as the eye could see, they let their guard down. It was their second mistake.  
Second and last.  
The right side of the con-pod was ripped off and in seconds, his world crashed into tiny shards, falling around him as a scream tore out of his throat.  
When he woke up at the medical center, he was told that he had finished killing the Kaiju and dragged the damaged Jaeger back to shore, all while surviving the neural load of the single connection.  
He doesn't answer.  
He doesn't remember it.  
All he remembers is pain, screams and the feeling of his mother's chest caving in, her heart stuttering before coming to a stop and then the emptiness of a suddenly lost neural connection.  
All the rest is white noise.

 **vi.**  
Noel's in the middle of solving a stupidly complicated mathematical equation in the shatterdome's conference room when the Kaiju alert goes off.  
As always, his heart jumps in his throat and a multitude of questions run through his head, hanging heavy on the tip of his tongue:  
Where was it?  
What category was it?  
Who was being deployed to deal with it?  
He remains in his seat, however. He knows better than to try and pry for information when a Kaiju was attacking.  
It's not long before Lightning suddenly bursts into the room and shoos him away, leaving Noel dumbfounded at the quantity of people that move past him and start taking seats. Of all the years he spent moving from shatterdome to shatterdome with his mother, he had never heard of all the higher-ups assembling so fast after an attack. Sure, they would get together and discuss the extent of the damage, losses and further defensive measures - if what his Aunt Serah told him was the truth - but usually it was _days_ after an attack.  
Why were they assembling when the alarm had just gone off?  
He thinks of asking but, when he looks up, Lightning's face is impassive but there is hurt in her eyes. It's a rare look on her but one that he couldn't say had never seen before. He knew now that it was serious.   
As such, he settles for squeezing her hand and letting her go without a complaint when he is safe beside Aunt Serah at the hangar.  
Looking up at the where he knew the Command Room was located, he still sees Snow pacing back and forth through the glass, head in his hands and obviously in hysterics.  
What had happened?

 **vii.**  
His father visits him.  
They sit in silence at first.  
They were never very close; his father was always so absorbed in his work that he was barely home and when he indeed was, his mother was the bridge between them.  
With her gone, they don't know how to communicate.  
Bartholomew tries, though. Tells him it was not his fault. That he was brave. That Nora was sure to have been proud of who he was in her final moments.  
Hope laughs. It's a scary sound.  
He tells his father that his mother's last moments had been of pure terror and that she had kept screaming his name while chanting through their connection that she did not want to _die_.  
That her death had been gruesome as the Kaiju squeezed and crushed her between its claws and that _in no way_ it had been the glorified event they kept feeding everyone, of how she had gone out a brave Ranger.  
She had been _terrified_.  
She had _regretted_ her decision to pilot with him.  
She had wanted to _live_.  
After that, Bartholomew doesn't try again.

 **viii.**  
Turns out they had lost a Jaeger and its' pilots, the Estheim dyad.  
The Kaiju were evolving and the Jaeger were falling quicker than they could fix them.   
They were _losing_.  
Lightning was doing her best - he had barely seen her in months - but according to hushed whispers, the Jaeger program was losing supporters.   
Well, that was clear.   
Noel squeezed his hands into fists as stood in the hangar, shifting uneasily as he looked at the remaining robots: he was young but he was not _stupid_.  
There were less people working on them. The engineering teams were smaller, too. Faces he was used to seeing almost every day at the Command Center suddenly weren't there any more.   
The program had lost funding and it was on its last leg, they finally let him know.  
Swallowing hard, Noel bit his tongue to keep himself from lashing out.  
Would his chance at being a pilot be gone before he was even old enough to take it?

 **ix.**  
They deemed him fit to return to his duties as a Ranger soon after his father's visit.   
He was needed, they said.  
They also proposed extensive therapy and regular check-ups to ascertain the extent of the damage caused by the abrupt end of the neural connection between him as his mother.  
He refused both and moved to another shatterdome as soon as he could, requesting only for his identity as a previous pilot to be kept under wraps.  
He had had _enough_.  
As he set foot inside his new working place and came to face with the remaining robots, Hope made a promise to himself as he glared straight their empty visages in silent challenge.  
He would never set foot inside a Jaeger again.

 **x.**  
The Jaeger program was dead.  
No more recruits. No more funding for repairs. An empty shatterdome.  
His heart had broken when the news reached him.   
He had looked at Lightning, wanting to protest, to say _something_ but, and before he could say a word, he felt her gentle hand fall on his head and ruffle his hair, soothing him.  
_They were the resistance now_ , she announced. Crouching down before him, she held his eyes in her steady gaze.   
She wasn't giving up and he was going to become a Jaeger pilot, regardless of age.


	2. Moments Between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the late, I have no excuse besides being a procrastinating little shit.  
> As a side note: I decided that instead of two parts, this story needed to be broken in three. First part for backstory, second for development and third for conclusion.  
> So, just one more to go!

**xi.**  
The first time Noel sees Hope is when he moves in with Lightning to the last open shatterdome, a couple years after his graduation from the Jaeger academy.  
He's talking with Serah - and no matter how many times the woman _whined_ , he would stand his ground and deem himself (with no small amount of embarrassment) too old to keep calling her _aunt_ \- at the Command Center when the silver haired engineer enters the room, arms full with a variety of blueprints. He barely nods as some people greet him before moving to a small cubicle, spreading the papers all over the table and then giving them his utmost attention.  
It wasn't a grand entrance. It wasn't even particularly memorable. It was just _curious_.  
When he asks Serah who the man is, she looks at him in silence for a moment before telling him that he was their new head engineer, tasked with the upgrading of the Jaegers they had left.  
Looking back at the other, Noel made a small noise of appreciation at the back of his throat.  
Dedicated people were just what they needed if they wanted the Jaeger program to stand tall once more.  
Hope doesn't see him staring that day.

 **xii.**  
The first time Hope ever sees Noel is when he is standing in front of an old mark II Jaeger, overseeing the first trial with its new core, and the brunet runs past to meet a pink haired woman just ahead of him.  
When he identifies the woman as being the _very_ important Marshall Farron, he thinks the kid must be either crazy or _very_ brave to talk so freely with their major figure of authority but, when she turns - surprised, of course - and smiles at the young man, he connects the dots.  
The boy she had taken in after Onibaba's attack at New Bodhum, her last mission as a Jaeger pilot.  
_This must be him_ , he thinks. He had known he was young but, even now, he didn't look much older than _very_ early twenties.  
Noel, he believed his name was.  
He seemed well and happy, considering his past. _Huh_.  
He wished he could say the same about himself.  
Noel doesn't see him staring that day.

 **xiii.**  
They actually _meet_ each other during a briefing.  
Running late, Noel is the last one to arrive and he quietly sneaks into the conference room, standing by the door as not to attract attention to himself. Sighing in relief when he takes notice that the Marshall is just starting her speech, he pats his chest and tries to control his breathing - it was a long run! - before he startles, hearing someone quietly huff in amusement to his right.  
Looking over, he sees the new head engineer eyeing him with amusement, a hand covering what's sure to be a small, teasing curve of his lips.  
Apologizing for interrupting is the only thing that runs through his head so that's what Noel does, a hand reaching to rub the back of his head in embarrassment.  
He is surprised when another hand, definitely not his, is extended towards him.  
Looking back up as he took it, Noel watches as the other man gives him a wider smile and presents himself quietly.  
_Hope_ , he said his name was. _It is nice to meet you._  
Fitting, he thinks of saying, considering the man's position in the program.  
He had barely gotten his name out and dropped Hope's hand when Lightning's voice boomed across the room, making him jerk back to attention and shrink under her familiar glare.  
He felt ten and with his hand in the cookie tin before dinner all over again.  
Besides, the whole room was holding back snickers. It was _humiliating_.  
Flushing to the very tips of his ears, he gave the woman the tiniest of nods: he _knew_ he was in the wrong and he was _sorry_. Holding Lightning's reproaching glare until she looked away, Noel sagged with relief before throwing a quick, apologetic glance at Hope, sure that he would be embarrassed as well.  
To his surprise, the man was obviously holding back quiet laughter. He did look back at him after a moment, if only because he felt the burning intensity of Noel's indignant glare, but only to give him a small shrug, ultimately unruffled but eyes twinkling with mirth.  
Noel felt his lips stretch into an amused grin.  
His curiosity had officially been picked.

 **xiv.**  
Noel was... _everywhere_.  
When he had first arrived at the shatterdome, the occasions in which Hope would lay eyes on the brunet for more than a moment were few. Now, and ever since their little exchange during Marshall Farron's latest briefing... The man would pop up everywhere he went.  
He would always see him as well, no matter how much he tried to hide or stay out of sight.   
It wasn't that he didn't like him - he liked Noel just fine - but he just preferred to focus on his work instead of making friends at the workplace.  
Less distractions.   
Less vulnerabilities.  
Noel would always run up to him and strike a conversation, too. He was chatty. He was loud.   
He moved too much: he could practically see the _golden retriever_ burst from deep within him every time.  
He was... admittedly a breath of fresh air.

 **xv.**  
Hope was... an _enigma_.  
Although he had been in the shatterdome for a while, he didn't seem to regularly interact with anyone in particular and, when he did, it was quick and professional.  
There was little human warmth in his actions, yet he cared enough to help their project and give it his all.  
It made him insanely curious.   
Why did he do it? What could have lead him to build such walls?   
Part boredom, part natural curiosity, Noel decided to make it his mission - outside Ranger duties, of course - to figure out what made Mr. Hope No-Last-Name _tick_.

At first, he had tried to ask around about the man's past - after all, and he knew this, one's past is what moulded them into whomever they were - but all he got were head shakes and murmurs about how they knew nothing of Hope, leaving him no other option that to run right up to the one person he knew would know something: _Lightning_.  
The pink haired woman refused to tell him anything.  
Noel was stunned into silence for a moment, watching as his mentor stared up at him - unyielding, resolute - as if waiting for further questions. When asked why she wouldn't tell him, Lightning simply told him it was not her place to tell - that if he was so interested in the other man, that then he should strike up a conversation and get to know him himself, not through others when opinions might be biased and were weak comparisons to the real deal.  
Surrendering to her logic after he turned it over in his head for a beat, Noel ended up nodding and was about to apologize for taking her time when he froze, hand instinctively rising to his own nose as Lightning's began to bleed.  
As always, it took a moment and the right medicine for it to stop. He felt broken, as he always did when his adoptive mother suffered an episode, but did his best not to let it show.  
Mark I Jaeger were weapons of mass destruction and… not much else.   
There wasn't a lot more besides reinforced steel to protect its pilots and, the possibility that the inside of a Mark I Jaeger might be as risky as a fight against the Kaiju-- it wasn't even considered. Yet, radiation poisoning was a consequence... And Lightning a victim of it.  
She had told him once, when he asked her why had she retired from piloting, from _fighting_ , that if she ever set foot inside a Jaeger again, the toll would be so great she wouldn't survive.  
It wasn't an accusation. It wasn't even said with resentment. Just fatigue.  
He hadn't bothered her again about the subject, instead starting to silently help her get through her episodes.  
Despite his strong feelings towards the Jaeger program, she was still the one who had taken him in and raised him the best she could.  
He'd rather keep _her_.

 **xvi.**  
Paranoid.  
That would be the best word to define him at the moment.  
Looking over his shoulder for what felt like the nth time, Hope tasted victory _at last_ as he caught a glimpse of brown hair around the corner.  
Noel was tailing him. He _knew_ it.  
Question was… Why?

 **xvii.**  
Determined.  
The adjective fit him to a T in that instant, as he quickly ducked around a corner.  
He was keen on following Lightning’s advice: to get to know Hope by going to the man himself for information.  
How do you do it when your target is either too busy with his work (and you would feel bad for interrupting) or is surrounded by others, though?  
Noel was then forced to admit to himself that most of the complications he was facing towards approaching the other man were born from his own inability to come up with a single topic of conversation. What would he say, when he finally approached him?  
What _could_ he say?  
As he felt a tap to his shoulder and came to face with a raised eyebrow and narrowed eyes, Noel was spared the agony of having to think further about an opening line.  
He worked better under pressure, anyway.

 **xviii.**  
Noel had taken to bringing him food at seemingly random moments of the day.  
He had used his busy schedule and need to forgo some meals to meet deadlines as an excuse to do so but after so many occurrences, it had become a routine. _Their_ routine.  
He was transparent, though.  
The moment the veiled questions started coming, Hope _knew_. Noel was a man on a mission and his goal? To gather information on him.  
Too bad for the brunet that he wasn’t about to start prattling freely about his life, especially when what he was comfortable sharing was already known to the other man.  
Hope Estheim. Head Engineer. _Very_ busy man.  
It wasn’t enough for the other, apparently.  
As Noel did a, admittedly, laughable effort to pry material from him, Hope regarded him with a careful eye as he took his time to savor the food. Why did he want to know? What was the point? He believed that he was an interesting enough person, even without the knowledge of his past: why the need to pry further into his life?  
Did Noel really think he was that interesting…?  
Or did he already know and wanted to seize the whole story directly from him?

 **xix.**  
Hope was a tough nut to crack.  
He had tried to be vague, he had tried to be subtle but every time, and before he realized it, the subject had been turned around and _he_ was the one answering the very questions he wanted to know about Hope.  
Noel started to wonder if he really should be delving into such deep waters, if the other was so insistent in evading him.  
What could need so much secrecy?

 **xx.**  
Noel had reached a breaking point and finally decided on a direct approach.  
He had started easily enough. Hometown, age, pets…  
Hope closed his eyes.  
It made him think of other days – _better_ days. Days filled with laughter and warm smiles and homemade butter cookies cooling in the highest shelf so he couldn’t reach them before then.  
There wasn’t a day when he didn’t think of his life – or what it used to be.  
Hope Estheim: a normal boy from a normal family.  
Things used to be _so_ _simple_ , he thought with a pang. Even with the Kaiju threatening their very existence, he had had a happy life. Uneventful.  
Then he had gotten into his head that he wanted to be a Jaeger pilot and his naivety caused everything to change.  
Much like the final twist of the knife at just the right time, Noel chose that moment to ask about his family.  
At first, there was silence.  
Then, everything came rushing back all at once as the white noise he had tried so hard to bury away filled his ears.

_pain screams hope **listen t o m e**_

His left arm jerks, his fist clenches. Scars like tattoos and a daily reminder of what he couldn’t achieve, rising and rising until they were suffocating him, squeezing at his throat tighter and _tighter and **tighter**_ \--

_kaiju metal hissing blood nora **stop l i s t e n  t O  M E  H O P E  D O N T**_

Hope realizes he is sobbing and that his feet had taken him to his dorm when he sees the frozen smile of his mother, beaming up at him through broken glass by his bed.  
He doesn’t sleep that night.

 **xxi.**  
Lightning was comforting in her silence as he laid beside her in her dorm, a child seeking sanctuary in his mother’s presence.  
Hope had just gotten up and left.  
No words, no glances – no indication that even acknowledged his presence: just heavy breathing and tense muscles, a cornered animal fleeing in unadulterated _terror_.  
Noel had just stared after him, speechless. Maybe he should have followed, maybe not.  
All he knew was that he had crossed a line.

 **xxii.**  
The impromptu snacks.  
The little chats.  
Noel had stopped reaching out to him altogether. Did he welcome the change or did he loathe it?  
When his days had been filled with wide smiles and incessant chatter, now they were mostly silent, filled with equations and rationality. For years, he had lived this way.  
Now, it was _suffocating_ in its simplicity.  
Relieving Knifehead’s strike was agonizing. Crippling. _Cleansing_.  
Hope was far from having accepted his mother’s death. He doubted he ever would: in his heart laid a wound too deep to fully heal and in his soul, a hole in the shape of his mother that could never be filled.  
What Noel’s question did was rip off the band-aid. The wound wasn’t healed but needed the oxygen in order to scar.  
In the end, it didn’t matter.  
Noel was gone.  
It took him three times of absently looking over his shoulder in search for the other to realize that he misses him.

 **xxiii.**  
Fourteen days, one hour and twenty minutes.  
It was how long it took Noel to figure out what to say.

 **xxiv.  
** Taped to his desk one morning, there was a note.

‘Hangar, 2100  
Dinner for two’

Two simple sentences.  
A smile that lasted for hours.

 **xxv.**  
He had a speech prepared.  
Lightning could recite it in her sleep, Serah had it engrained in her memory – all because Noel had made sure to run it by the two of them several times before he deemed it _acceptable_ to be presented to Hope, in hopes of not offending the other yet again.  
It wasn’t as if he wasn’t sure of what he _needed_ to say – he was – but he didn’t _dare_ say it in a way that pushed Hope further away.  
It was easy, with the other Rangers. With Hope…?  
Inexplicably harder.  
(Noel vaguely speculated that it had something to do with the other’s angry glare. It rivaled Lightning’s and that was saying _something_.)  
In the end, when the other man met him at precisely nine o’clock, all that had left his lips was a muddled mess and more fidgeting that he was comfortable with in front of another person that was not his mother or aunt.  
He just couldn’t help it.  
The moment Hope had walked in front of him – all quiet intensity and calm authority – everything that he had painstakingly prepared had vanished. Lost, forever.  
Noel watched in silence after that, expecting the other to turn and leave.  
Hope smiled instead.

 **xxvi.**  
As he sipped some of the sweet wine Noel had managed to smuggle into the hangar – his look had all but begged him _not_ to ask –, Hope contemplated the brunet  
In all honesty, he had expected an _excuse_.  
Not an apology.  
Noel had given him time to cool down – unwillingly, Noel had sheepishly admitted -, even when he did not know what had set him off in the first place.  
He had apologized, even not knowing what he had done wrong.  
Despite his lack of knowledge about _anything_ , Noel had been more considerate to him than all of those that indeed knew him had been since he had arrived at their shatterdome.  
So he told him.  
Noel had earned that much.

 **xxvii.**  
As the door to Hope’s dorm closed behind him, Noel finally allowed his mind to drift as his feet mechanically carried him to his own.  
A pilot.  
_Estheim_. The name rung in his ears.  
Suddenly, it was all much clearer - Hope’s walls.  
Noel still remembered the day. Anyone still connected to the Jaeger program did, as it had been the straw that broke the chocobo’s back – the defining moment that had the whole program shut down.  
Noel didn’t duel on that, though.  
Jaegers had been his salvation. For Hope, they were his doom.  
Just how hard must it be, to face his damnation every day?  
To be in their presence all day long?

 **xxviii.**  
The alarm came at dawn.  
The target was the small town of Oerba, to where a category III Kaiju was quickly headed.  
Vanille and Fang, two veteran pilots, were to be deployed. Hope was almost embarrassed when the two showed up to suit up and greeted him: the two women had graduated around the time that he and his mother had and, as far as memory went, the four of them had gotten along quite well. Yet, he had failed to approach them in all of the time that he had been in the shatterdome.  
They were unorthodox but efficient and their compatibility was better than most he had seen, maybe aside from his and his mother’s. Their Jaeger, a mark III named Ragnarok, was just starting to show her age but continued to sum up victories to their side. It was a terrific machine: he had made sure of it.  
Waving at Vanille as she bounced past him on her way to the cockpit, Hope thought fondly that, once they returned, they should get together sometime. Catch up a little.  
For so long, he had been building up walls around his heart.  
Maybe it was time to start letting others in again.

 **xxix.**  
Oerba remained unharmed. The Kaiju had been defeated.  
Ragnarok lay with it at the bottom of the ocean, marking the place of her bittersweet victory.  
Noel doesn't see Hope for weeks after that.

 **xxx.**  
Time was running out. The apocalypse was approaching.  
Hope didn’t need to listen to the worried whispers and murmurs of the other workers commenting on Dr. Zaidelle and Dr. Farron’s frantic and constant trips to Marshall Farron’s quarters to know it.  
All he would have had to do was read the reports.  
The Kaiju were _evolving_.  
Ragnarok had been taken down but not by pure and sheer violence. The Kaiju aimed _specifically_ for the Jaeger’s weaker spots.  
It knew exactly what it was doing.  
_The human race needs to take a stance_ , Marshall Farron told them later that day at an emergency meeting. All of their resources, both material and human, gathered for a final strike.  
It was time.


End file.
